Iraq war vet accuses cops of acting like an occupying force: 'There’s a rot at the heart of policing'

In a column for the Daily Beast, a veteran of the Iraq war harshly criticized police officers who -- whether due to lack or training or lack of self-control -- have been attacking protestors who have flooded the streets in the U.S. to express their outrage over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of four now-fired police officers in Minneapolis.

With assistance from the Beast's Spencer Ackerman, Rafael Noboa y Rivera began by detailing his military background.

 "I joined the military in 1999. I was deployed to Balad, north of Baghdad, as the occupation of Iraq started to unravel in 2003 and 2004, the end of my Army tenure. I was scared every time I did a cordon-and search. But I received training—from basic training up through field exercises," he explained. "To the small degree we did cordon-and-search in training, we were trained to exercise fire discipline, response discipline, and to observe the rules of engagement. There’s an Army value system that rewards restraint, that says, 'This is the way we behave and we’ll punish transgressions.'"

With that in mind, the military veteran called out American cops over their treatment of citizens -- in particular, how they treat African-Americans.

"Seeing police across America escalate violence against protesters made me think of my service in Iraq. In retrospect, I both did and didn’t expect that we’d be treating Americans, and especially black Americans, like they were under occupation. The difference is that in the military, we had rules of engagement and training, even if they didn’t always succeed, to stop us from making an awful situation worse," he wrote before noting, "The cops don’t seem to have that."

"It’s a multifaceted problem, but cops are walking around like storm troopers, with an assumption that getting more weaponry will allow them to take on gang violence. Meanwhile, you’re looking at white civilians walking around with AR-15s, cosplaying as Call of Duty characters, and cops don’t stop them when they try to occupy statehouses," he explained. "When I saw the video of Minnesota police and National Guard shooting paint canisters into quiet houses on a residential street, it showed me a throughline in all these police reactions. No matter the department or the locality, there’s a total lack of discipline."

"There’s a rot at the heart of policing. We’ve forgotten what it means to protect, to de-escalate a situation, to preserve the peace as opposed to inflicting violence," he ciontinued. "I saw the absolutely incredible statement by the NYPD commissioner. It was laser-focused on the safety of his officers as opposed to the safety of the public. But when you choose to be a police officer, you accept risk. I don’t mean to minimize the dangers police face, but it reminded me of when generals would focus on force protection—keeping us safe, as opposed to keeping the Iraqis safe. If it’s overriding your mission to serve and protect—the key word is 'serve' —you need to find another line of business."

The military veteran then had a word of warning for law enforcement officials.

 "It’s extremely dangerous for American citizens to feel that they’re under occupation," he cautioned. "Then you’re talking about a crisis of democratic legitimacy. That is profoundly corrosive. I think that’s really at the heart of much of what’s happening here. We’ve got way more than 103,000 dead in this pandemic and probably way more than 40 million unemployed. The American people don’t feel like their government institutions are at all responsive to their most basic needs and desires—bottom of the Maslow Pyramid stuff like feeling safe and protected. And the summer hasn’t even started yet."

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